December 2007

That sure is funny to say, but it’s pretty accurate at this point. After a week of planes, airports, security checks (including 3 at London Heathrow where I only changed flights!), conferences, events, hotels, and sleeping on assorted floors around Europe, being back in my own flat in Vienna is extremely comforting. The empty fridge not so much, but I’ll take care of that tomorrow.

The Creative Commons 5 year anniversary at c-base in Berlin was pretty fantastic. A few hours of talks about CC and demoing CC’d web projects (of course that was all in German so it was lost on me) and then tons of cake and adult beverages for those who wanted to partake. I was rocking a Club Mate or four, as you’d expect. Here are all of my pics from the evening and yes, that really is a European version of Edward Fortyhands. Of course they don’t know what a 40 is, so maybe this is Edward halfaliter hands.

I forgot to mention another super fun part of this week’s travels. When I got to Austria I bought a T-Mobile SIM card and threw it in a world phone I’d borrowed for the trip. It’s a prepay deal so I just buy a block of minutes and use them till it runs out and then buy more. Technically you can call a number and see what amount you have left, but it’s in German so doesn’t so a lot for me. Well, right after I got to France it ran out. I couldn’t buy minutes from any vendors there or later in Berlin because it’s T-Mobile Austria, not T-Mobile France or T-Mobile Germany which I guess aren’t linked enough to allow that. In theory I should be able to call in and just buy minutes with a credit card as well, but the SIM needs to be registered to an account to do that, and the number to call to register isn’t free, so I can’t even do that. I’m back in Austria now but since every single place is closed on Sundays I have to wait till tomorrow to get it running again. The slightly interesting part is turns out SMS messages are free to receive, so I keep getting them from friends and from Twitter, but I can’t respond which has made things a little difficult.

Also, bike nerds, I finally spotted a few fixed gears. I saw a few in the Plazes office in Berlin, and then tonight walking around Vienna actually saw two of them. Guess this isn’t the multi speed wasteland I thought! Also, Joi just got a new one, gonna have to send him one of our sweet new IAAL/MAF spokecards for it. Here’s the first one I saw in Vienna…

Paris was hectic and insane. It was great to see some old friends, meet some new ones, and do a bit of networking but in hindsight the majority of my time there was spent walking the streets looking for a hotel, sitting in the lobby of a hotel I wasn’t staying at, or sitting in the room of the hotel I was staying at watching live video streams of the LeWeb3 conference happening down the street. I probably could have done that from Vienna, but oh well. More stamps on my passport if nothing else. I left Paris at stupid o’clock yesterday morning, flew to London, then backtracked to Berlin. Clearing customs in Berlin was the first time this entire trip that the agents have given me a second look. I guess my travel is starting to look suspicious.

Agent: You were in France this morning?
Me: Yep.
Agent: And now you just flew here from London?
Me: Yep?
Agent: Seems like a long route to take, any reason for it?
Me: That’s a good question, if British Air will answer it for you I’d love to hear it.
Agent: Is this business?
Me: Nope, visiting friends.
Agent: How long are you staying in Berlin?
Me: About 48 hours.
Agent: Then you return to the US?
Me: No, to Vienna, I’m living there for the month. That flight is also via London, if you can believe that.
Agent: ..
Me: .
Agent: Have a night stay in German. *stamp*

Unfortunately there are no trains that run to the Berlin airport so I went to the taxi stand and hunted down one that was covered with stickers of all the credit cards the accept. Half hour or so later we pulled up to the flat where I’m crashing and I hand the guy my plastic. He’s not thrilled. I point to the stickers and he just shakes his head no. I pay the man in cash and go on my way. The rest of the day was filled with food, coffee and friends. Both online and off. Tonight is the Creative Commons 5 year anniversary party at C-Base then then I’m back to Vienna tomorrow. Very excited about both.

Oh, and in a short follow up to the travel part of my previous post – after trying to book no less than 10 hotels in Paris, and having the price jump significantly on the checkout page I got fed up and quit. This means I’ll be landing in Paris with no solid plans for a place to stay, at least as of this moment. I’ve got a few offers from folks who live in/around Paris to crash at their houses but I don’t know if those are going to be convenient to LeWeb3 at all, and while that’s a better option than sleeping on a park bench, spending assloads of cash on taxis defeats the purpose of not staying in a hotel. So, any friends, neighbors, countrymen who are already set up and booked at hotels in/near/around the LeWeb3 conference in Paris who have an extra bed, couch, floorspace that they’d be willing to share, please let me know. I’ll happily chip in for the cost of the room, I just couldn’t deal with jumping through any more hoops today.

That said, I land at 5:30pm ish – should I go straight to the conference hall or somewhere else? I checked FaceBook but all the events listed seem to start at 8am so I’m sure I’m missing something.